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City bosses fund bid to cut crime

A group of the City's top financiers has come together to form a fund that plans to cut crime.

It includes Sigrid Rausing, the Tetra Pak heiress, Stanley Fink, the hedge fund veteran, and Sir Ronald Cohen, one of the Labour party's biggest donors. The aim is in effect to privatise the rehabilitation of offenders.

The scheme, which has government support, would pay investors for cutting prisoners' reoffending rates.

Money would be pooled in an investment fund, called a social impact bond, which would provide the finance for vocational training courses and counselling services for offenders, and pay for management expertise.

The initial investors would be charities involved in the rehabilitation of former prisoners. If reoffending rates were cut, the fund would be paid a portion of the money saved by the government in prison places, police time and court costs.